Upcoming & New Industrial Laws to "Closing the Loopholes"

June 17th, 2024 Latest News

ACA NSW members will have heard about the "Closing the Loopholes" laws. Some have already been in since December 2023, while others are due on 1 July 2024 and after.

Of interest to ACA NSW members will be the following aspects of the new industrial laws of the Federal Government:

the small business redundancy exemption changes (commenced on 15 December 2023);
the union delegates' new workplace rights (commenced on 15 December 2023);
the union's new "Right of Entry" for suspected underpayments (commencing 1 July 2024)
the employees' new "right to disconnect" (commencing 26 August 2024*);
the new definitions of casual employment, employee and employer (commencing 26 August 2024*);
the new Same Job, Same Pay changes for labour hire workers (commencing 15 December 2024*); and
the new wages and super annuation theft offence and penalties (commencing 1 January 2025*).

NOTE: * means the Federal Government could change the commencement date to be earlier.

With the assistance of the ACA National Committee, the New Delegates' Rights Term in all Modern Awards was circulated to all ACA NSW members covering the following:

key obligations
representation by eligible employees
reasonable communication with eligible employees
workplace facilities
delegate paid training
conditions on workplace delegates
Modern Awards with existing delegates' rights
FAQs, including:
- Is this now over and settled?
- Can a workplace delegate interrupt an employee in their ordinary work and stop them working?
- In terms of the exemption from having to provide delegates with paid time off for training, who is a small business?
- If I get this wrong, what is the consequence?

In the meantime, ACA NSW has provided some information via its regular ACA NSW What's The Buzz meetings for members-only. If you missed it, you can access the video-on-demand via the Past What's The Buzz (aka Network) Meetings or below

NOTE: You will need to use your ACA NSW username and password to access.